OUR cities are devouring the hinterlands with a voracious appetite. More than 3,000 acres of agricultural land have been used for housing colonies in district Peshawar in the last 13 years, according to data provided to the provincial assembly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by the revenue minister on Friday.

The trend is not restricted to Peshawar. The revenue minister also provided figures for Nowshera, where almost a third of the city’s agricultural hinterland has been parcelled out for housing colonies.

Around Punjab and Sindh as well, one finds sprouting housing colonies coming up on agricultural land. In part, the trend is fed by a lack of any law to prevent spiralling construction on agricultural land. But in large measure, the trend is also fed by pools of black money accumulating in the informal sector that is searching for profitable avenues for investment — and speculation in land provides the perfect outlet. Equally, the trend is the product of poor zoning to channel and guide the growth of urbanisation in the midst of a growing population.

Many of the housing colonies are being built on prime agricultural land that is rendered unproductive since the colonies wait for years for infrastructure including electricity, sewerage systems, water and gas.

The main purpose behind these colonies in most cases is simply to trade files. The development work is left to languish for years. Eating up fertile and productive land for speculative purposes such as this carries a double cost.

First, it destroys productive land by turning it into a chip in a gambling enterprise. Second, it saps energy from any attempt to formulate a coherent response to the massive and growing deficit in housing units for urban dwellers, particularly the poor who are left at the mercy of the land mafia.

It is imperative to bring this trend under control, through laws that protect agricultural land, and also to ensure proper zoning in cities and arrest the accumulation of vast holdings of black money in the informal sector.

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2014